July's Pictures

Don't worry if you don't get the title, there's nothing to get it is purely a description of the day, well not the full day just the end. If it were to be a description of the full day it would be more like: Headed doe Bellagio, missed, got to Monza to see closed palace, had difficulty leaving car park, came home dissapointed and went to Arona instead. The problem with that is that its not too catchy and I don't think the title would fit into the field in the database I use to store titles at Zamyatin.

So from that you my have guessed that we set out to see Bellagio, the most beautiful Italian towns. Unfortunately due to an operator malfunction the route to the Royal Palace of Monza was input. Now I have no idea whether Monza is on the way, I suspect so, but by this time we were embedded in Monza and it seemed churlish to stop now, after all we were (I was) planning to see the palace anyhow.

So after a bit of a false start and what appeared to be us gaining access to a car park we shouldn't have we finally put the car in a place that looked like a car park but for some strange reason we didn't have a ticket and it was defiantly one of those that you paid on exit. Anyway after walking around the place at speed due to a full bladder, it appeared that the palace was closed, no explanation other than it looked like there were major works in place.

So now we are homeward bound until my Wife decides Arona is the place to go. There's not much here apart from a port and restaurants, but it will do for lunch at 2pm. You can foget asking the guide book, it doesn't seem to be able to acknowledge the existence of Monza and I would have thought that might have been on the map. Finally, this is a pic of across the water from Arona. No I have no idea where it is, nor will the guide book.

This chap appears to be happy, and why not, its not raining. That's all really. It appears to be a strange state of affairs in Lake Maggiore that is has to be raining. When we landed there was thunder and lightening and we have had a spot of rain and seen a rainbox but to be honest we've not really seen that much rain, though this afternoon's trip back from Isola Bella did end with grey clouds and it remains to be overcast. Still given the option between here and work, there's no contest.

Today has been a three Island Tour, which was weird because with my hangover I was barely up for one island let alone full kahoona, not that there are only three islands, I know of at least 4 which probably means there are at least 8, still the idea of bobbing around on the lake to try and get to an island to see a garden seemed like and OK thing to do at the best of times, but when I was feeling like I was bobbing around on a lake to start with meant that I didn't really fancy adding the feeling of bobbing around on a lake to that original feeling (of bobbing around on a lake). Still we only made it to two islands which was a bonus, I was worried that my wife's ever present need to complete the set would take over from sense and we would end up dashing to the last island hard up against the last ferry leaving.

Anyway we (I) survived and we are no back in the hotel to mash that hangover or create another one. Just so you know, this is of at the top of the gardens in Isola Bella, I just liked the way the arch framed the statue as well as the air punch.

This isn't the front of the Collosus, it's the arguably more interesting back of the machine. Well perhaps I should say more photogenic, even then I think there would be some argument to be had bearing in mind that the front is a wall of lights and paper tape, more lights than tape though. This is (I was going to say of course but it's not that obvious) the National Museum of Computing which is in Bletchly Park, not part of Bletchley Park, no don't you go getting confused now thinking that entering Bletchley Park gives you any access to the first computer invented, oh no, it's separate museum.

Interestingly, the Bletchley Park Museum hints that it's human error that allowed us to break the German code in WWII, but it's the National Museum of Computing explained how this happened.